Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Nov 15;322:116056. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116056. Epub 2022 Sep 5.
Due to the sheer quantity and quality of material, packaging waste is separately collected by municipal waste management systems, with a primary goal of its use in material recovery. The residual waste, i.e. rejected waste in the separation process can be energy recovered. Both recovery options have specific input material quality requirements. Therefore, it is important to know the characteristics of individual waste streams. This research analysed the composition and morphological characteristics of separately collected packaging waste from municipal waste management system, residual (rejected) waste fractions after separation steps and produced refuse-derived fuel (RDF). The efficiency of primary and secondary (manual) waste separation, as well as of the RDF production step, are tracked. Results show that primary waste separation produces material with under 7% of contaminants and secondary manual waste separation efficiency ranges between 45% and 55%. Physico-chemical comparison of simulated RDF strongly coincides with analysed properties of RDF as a final product which indicates very high separation efficiency in the RDF production. From the energy recovery/conversion standpoint, this can be quantified through deviations in the lower heating value (LHV) and the effective H/C molar ratio between simulated and real RDF samples, which are on the level of 1.8% and 1.1% respectively. The following conclusion can be made from the estimated relation between changes in separation efficiency and RDF energy-related characteristics; the separation efficiency of individual components plays important role in alternative fuel production as chemical compositions directly influence suitability for high-quality liquid fuel production. Results of this analysis shed a light on the connection between aspirations to increase material recovery share and the suitability of produced residual waste for further recovery and valorisation. The material and energetic valorisation are competitors, and further evaluation should be done to understand the investments needed to increase valuable fractions of wastes separation that, in turn, could diminish the energetic value of residual fractions and, therefore, the economic viability of energy recovery facilities.
由于材料的数量和质量巨大，包装废物由城市废物管理系统单独收集，主要目的是回收材料。残余废物，即分离过程中被拒绝的废物，可以进行能量回收。这两种回收选择都有特定的输入材料质量要求。因此，了解各个废物流的特性很重要。本研究分析了来自城市废物管理系统的单独收集包装废物、分离步骤后的残余（废弃）废物部分和生产的垃圾衍生燃料（RDF）的组成和形态特征。跟踪了主要和次要（手动）废物分离以及 RDF 生产步骤的效率。结果表明，主要废物分离产生的材料中污染物含量低于 7%，而次要手动废物分离效率在 45%至 55%之间。模拟 RDF 的物理化学比较与 RDF 作为最终产品的分析特性非常吻合，这表明 RDF 生产中的分离效率非常高。从能量回收/转换的角度来看，可以通过模拟和实际 RDF 样品之间低位发热值（LHV）和有效 H/C 摩尔比的偏差来量化，偏差分别为 1.8%和 1.1%。可以从分离效率变化与 RDF 能量相关特性之间的估计关系得出以下结论；个别组件的分离效率在替代燃料生产中起着重要作用，因为化学成分直接影响生产高质量液体燃料的适用性。该分析的结果揭示了提高材料回收份额的愿望与产生的残余废物进一步回收和增值的适宜性之间的联系。材料和能源增值是竞争对手，应进一步评估以了解增加废物分离有价值部分所需的投资，这反过来又会降低残余部分的能量值，从而降低能源回收设施的经济可行性。
